


Carved a Heart Into the Bark

by Mansion



Series: Wild Desert Flower [2]
Category: The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: F/M, Romance, Sparks Nevada: Marshal on Mars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2013-12-08
Packaged: 2018-01-03 23:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1074238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mansion/pseuds/Mansion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Red Plains Rider and the men in her life. Three-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carved a Heart Into the Bark

**Author's Note:**

> Like the Batu before me intended, I make some of them kiss.
> 
> For continuity purposes, part one is post "Spiders, Man!", part two is post "Stage Coach" and part three is between "Red Alert" and "Sweet and Showdown." While this fic is in a series with my other Red fic, Wild Desert Flower, it only has nominal continuity.

* * *

**_“Croach is the one my heart thinks it wants.”_ **

* * *

 

Two days into what was supposed to be her brand-new second chance at romance on a planet that wasn’t burned into a charcoal briquette by implacable comet robots and already Red was having… well, not second thoughts exactly, but concerns.

It wasn’t even like she meant to choose Croach over Nevada, but she was damned if he hadn’t stolen her heart anyway and reminded her why she fell for him when she was younger without even trying.

But that hadn’t worked out back then, for a lot of reasons, not least of which being that she was a half-wild orphan brat raised by aliens. Back then, she  had no rightful idea what she wanted at all or how to do anything more than blush and hold hands with the fellow she fancied. All her warring whims next to placid Martian stoicism made her feel flighty and stupid--two accusations that would earn a bullet from anyone else save the voice of her own doubts in the back of her mind.

Croach was still mostly the same--a little more affectionate this go, which was a lot more for a Martian but still not close to human at all.

Well, she knew what she was getting into, anyway, and there was time to let this thing develop--time, again, not stolen away by an apocalypse--so she supposed she was happy enough just to have someone beside her as she rode the lonesome plains.

On the third day, Croach brought her to a waterfall.

Red knew where it was--wasn’t a watering hole on the face of the fourth planet she hadn’t scoped out--but her riding beast wasn’t worn out nor were they low on water themselves.

Still, it was a nice break.

In the shade of the cliff by the falls, right near where the shower cascaded into the river below, Croach turned to her.

“I sense what I perceive to be dissatisfaction with the state of our companionship, The Red Plains Rider.”

Her eyes went wide involuntarily. Caught. Well, there wasn’t anything for it but the truth, so she let it out. "I’m just worried… It ain't gonna be like it was before, is it? Us riding around making moon eyes at each other fer a few months and nothing really coming of it? ‘Cause… I do love ya, Croach, but I dunno if that’s enough for me.”

He nodded. “I have thought much on this as well.”

“And?”

He stepped forward and gently, very gently, brushed a fringe of hair behind her ear. His fingertips trailed down her jawline to her chin and she let herself be guided to look up--

He leaned forward and kissed her solidly, his lips faintly cool on hers. Her knees went weak and she slipped her arms around his neck. His other hand went around to rest on the small of her back and it seemed like a dizzy eternity before they parted.

"Damn, Croach, where'd ya learn to kiss like that?" she breathed.

"The Dark Matters novels have several descriptive passages about the act of human kissing--"

"Nevermind," she said quickly, instincts warring between a laugh and some serious eye rolling. "Just kiss me again, okay?"

He did, and she staggered back a step, pulling him along, until there was solid rock at her back.

The spray was misting over them, cool in the afternoon heat, and the sound of the falls was a ceaseless hissing roar. The air smelled of water and oxygen churned into sharp ozone like in the wake of a rare Martian thunderstorm.

Red didn’t notice any of that. Not a damn bit.

 

* * *

   ** _“So take my hand, for it was planned--’Twas written in the stars.”_**  


* * *

 

It had been a long day, the sort wherein trouble finds a pair of riders more often than even they, trouble-prone as they were, might have liked. But three robot outlaws were shot to scrap metal and duly recycled, a russler put to justice, and a group of lavamen thoroughly charmed into submission by sundown. Red and Jim were little worse for the wear save for exhaustion.

In an ersatz camp, nothing much more than blankets next to a fire, they washed down the chalky aftertaste of space MREs with a shared flask of rotgut.

“Y’know, Jim, I--hic--Aw, damn.” Red fumbled around for a water canteen to wash away her hiccups. Maybe the liquor had gone to her head a little faster than she intended.

“I don’t mind sayin’ that you are an adorable drunk, The Red Plains Rider.”

“Shut it, Jim, and gimme s’more of that liquid desi’nated whiskey.”

“Why, do I detect an accent?”

Red frowned deeply. Definitely the liquor had gone to her head faster than she intended.

Jim laughed in the face of a death glare that had sent many a varmint heading for the hills without a single shot fired. “Sorta wish I had a camera right now, t’capture the way yer nose wrinkles up when ya make that face. Mighty adorable, that.”

“Wha… What even is that?”

“Camera? Takes pictures of things. Like a holo-projector, only flat.”

“I think I saw one of them in a _museum_ once.”

“I didn’t know Mars had one of them. Museums, that is.”

“Well, it used ta.” She smiled wickedly. “‘S trackin’ this metal outlaw what fancied hisself a gentleman bandit, and I staked him out there. Th’ most borin’ thing I ever done in m’life. Only fun part was the collateral damage. Dang, Jimmy, I keep forgettin’ you’re from, like, ancient history.”

“Reckon I need a savvy future lady to show me the mysterious ways o’ this wild alien frontier then.” It wasn’t only the firelight glittering in eyes.

She swallowed hard. “Reckon so.”

It wasn’t the first time they’d kissed--it wasn’t the first time they’d kissed that day--but still she felt like there were comet bugs swirling around her insides, all uncertain swimmy brightness bleeding into her veins. She’d never fallen this hard or fast before, and with Jim it didn’t even feel like falling, but like being caught before she even noticed her legs had gone out from under her.

She hoped she would never get used to it.

They tumbled down to the blankets, whiskey forgotten, everything forgotten, her fingers tearing away his vest, pulling at his shirt.

He was above her with the stars above them both, his face fire-lit and his hair mussed and falling forward… She dragged him down to kiss him deep, and didn’t let him go, not for the rest of the night.

Next morning, the glare of dawn drilled right through her eyelids as soon as it crested the horizon. She wormed down beneath the blankets and wondered if she could shoot the sun.

Probably. A laser shot might be able to travel through the vacuum of space and bury itself in the face of the sun if you fixed it right, but it wouldn't actually do anything, so... Dang it.

It occurred to her that she was alone in the blankets and she sat up fast. Immediately she groaned, regretting it deeply, but at least she found Jim, five feet away and fiddling with the embers of the campfire. He glanced over at the sound and smiled brighter than anything so paltry as the sun.

In a moment, he moved over to her and and smooched her on the cheek like they were adolescent sweethearts or something. “G’mornin’, bein’ designated darlin’.”

She socked him on the shoulder--hard--but hell, he still looked cute when he was wincing. “Teasin’ me ain’t the best course of action what to take when I got a hangover, Jimmy, unless yer lookin’ for more of those.”

"Water's just set to heatin' for coffee."

"Okay, I forgive ya," she mumbled, then yanked him close by his collar and planted a kiss over that stupid charming grin on his face.

 

* * *

_**“There are worse fellas to die next to than you, Nevada."** _

* * *

 

In the curtained twilight of a borrowed room in Rococoo, Red and Sparks pulled apart. For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of gasping.

Red pulled a sheet over the both of them just before the still air turned the drying sweat clammy, and sighed lingeringly. She spoke, her tone hushed, and still it seemed loud in the silence. “I’m starving.”

“Yeah, me too.”

She nudged him. “Go get us somethin’ to eat, Nevada.”

“You do it.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“Well, I guess you’re gonna starve to death, then.”

“You will too, dummy.”

“Still. Kinda worth it.”

She nudged him with her elbow, a little harder than she intended, and of course he shoved her back--no sense in that one’s head, she swore--and it devolved fast into a weak wrestling match, He had more of a size advantage, and pinned her down, a forearm across her solar plexus, one of her wrists caught in his hand.

Then the wrestling game became the other kind of game that wrestling games often become. She tilted up and kissed him roughly on the mouth, slightly off center, then pulled back just before he could respond.

Sparks let go of her wrist and wiped a stray strand of damp hair from her cheek with a fingertip. It was... intimate. A dumb thing to think after just having sex with a fellow, but there it was.

Her smile faded.

"Oh, come on, Red, don't do that." He shifted off of her, expression settling back into the furrowed unease he wore more often than not those days.

"Do what?"

"Make that face that means you're thinkin’ ‘bout Jim or..."

She sat up in bed, gathering the sheet over her chest. "Shaddup, Nevada. I wasn't. I am now, though, so no thanks for that."

"Red... Red, I... I didn't mean it." She could feel him sitting up behind her, probably reaching out a hand he couldn't decide if he should lay on her shoulder or not.

"I said to shaddup." She scrubbed at her eyes, but she wasn't crying. Not at the moment, anyway.

“If it wasn’t that, then what was it?” he persisted, failing to take a damn hint as usual. “What, outta all the things that’re wrong right now, is the particular thing what’s wrong?”

She didn’t know which was worse, the forgetting or the remembering, the burn of guilt that chased the afterglow or the way it failed to dispel the reality of those moments when the world didn’t exist outside of their room. They were both happening more and more often.

Before Jim, not a damn thing she’d ever wanted had made her happy after she got it. Now she’d lost her husband and her freedom--both of which she was fully intending to get back--but also her childhood best friend and first love, tragically out of the blue, and got saddled with Sparks besides. Not even the right Sparks, either, but this fragile-behind-the-eyes version who woke up screaming out of nightmares every time he went to sleep, which was maybe the last thing on the face of Mars that she wanted.

Except that wasn’t always true, and wasn’t it just the damned rub?

“Wish it hadn’t of ended up like this,” she murmured, aloud but not particularly to him, and even she wasn’t totally sure what she meant by that.

He pulled her into a hug, and she didn’t push him off like she might have otherwise. More of the fight had gone out of her these days than she cared to admit.

"We're gonna get outta here soon, Red," he whispered against her hair, then kissed her on the temple. "Promise."

Funny thing was, she believed him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Again, this fic is inspired by, written for, and beta'd by the indomitable Annakie. Just knowing how much the last section would emotionally devastate her gave me the strength to finish this. 
> 
> And general big ups to Acker and Blacker, for creating this awesome world and being totes cool with fanfiction about their show existing. Thanks for the shout-out in the intro to #145!


End file.
